


a fire you can't hide

by onefootonego (startingXI)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, setting: pre-show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 05:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18440099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startingXI/pseuds/onefootonego
Summary: “why don’t you just kick me out?” alex pressesone of vasquez’s eyebrows lifts “oh,” they say “i can if you’d like me to. there are some forms to fill though.” they sit up, reaching with a hand to tug open a drawer.





	a fire you can't hide

alex seethes. 

she stands with her arms folded across her chest, jaw set. she levels her gaze at vasquez who, contrary to alex in every way, is sitting with their feet up on the desk. their hands rest lightly in their lap and they continue to study alex, utterly unperturbed by the aggression rolling off of alex in waves “you wanted to see me?” they ask. 

as if they don’t know what this is about. 

“yes.” alex says “i did.” 

“then by all means danvers,” vasquez says “air your grievance.” 

that is alex’s first clue that vasquez knows exactly why she’s here. the second is the tick of amusement that pulls at the corner of vasquez’s mouth. alex sees it and her anger is pushed to a new peak, a new height. she’s infuriated, and in the wake of such anger, all that spill from her mouth is 

“why don’t you just kick me out?” 

one of vasquez’s eyebrows lifts “oh,” they say “i can if you’d like me to. there are some forms to fill.” they sit up, reaching with a hand to tug open a drawer. 

“that’s not what i’m saying.” alex counters, exasperated. 

“then say what you came here for.” vasquez presses, still calm, still even-keeled “or get back to your meal.” 

“i don’t give a fuck about the meal.” alex bites “i want to know why the fuck you seem intent on making my life a living hell. what did i ever do to you?” 

“to me, nothing.” vasquez says, bringing their feet off the desk and sitting up “but it’s my job to look at recruits and decide which ones are going to make the cut.” 

“and it’s clear you don’t think i make the cut.” alex says. 

“oh is it now?” vasquez asks, “because from where i’m standing, if i didn’t think you made the cut i would have dumped your ass out into the desert already. and does it look like you’ve been dumped into the desert.” 

alex ignores the question, pressing on with her line of thought “so what is it then? what’s the point? because i’m sick of, of everything.” 

“do you want to know what i’m sick of?” vasquez asks, pausing for only a minute before continuing “i’m sick of coming in every day and watching you fuck around.” 

“fuck around?” alex repeats, disbelieving. 

there’s a deep-set ache in her body that hasn’t let up since the first day after detoxing in this hell-hole. she’s never felt exhausted all the time, and alex can’t pin down a moment in her academic career where she’s felt as challenged as she has over the past three months. all of this suffering to have her superior officer sitting there, telling her that she’s just been fucking around. 

“yeah,” vasquez says “fucking around.” they emphasize “you could be the best recruit in your class if you actually tried. you could get everyone to listen to you. to follow you. but instead, you just, don’t. you think i’m trying to get you to quit, i’m trying to get you to commit yourself to something. forget about what brought you to this point. forget that you don’t have eight years of military experience. forget that. start trusting yourself. start acting as if you belong here.” 

“what do you think i’ve been doing? what do you think i’ve been doing since day one?” 

“it’s not about what i think you’ve been doing. this is about what you could do. this is about what you’re not letting yourself do because you’re caught up in your head. or you’re caught up in your past. or whatever it is that’s holding you back. if you want to be mad at me for getting on your back, for pushing you, for holding you to a high standard. then go for it. i don’t care. you won’t be the first and you certainly won’t be the last. but don’t come in here like i’m the one getting you to quit when you’ve been looking for the door since you got here.” 

alex finds herself dumbfounded and speechless. she’s standing, looking at vasquez with all her momentum gone, all her anger depleted. all she’s left with is an empty space. there’s a curling void in her stomach that’s expanding outward “fine.” she says “give me the forms.” 

“no.” vasquez says. 

“what?” 

“you know what i said.” 

“i’m done.” alex says “i quit. i want out. so give me the damn forms.” 

“no.” vasquez repeats, “sit down.” 

“i’m done.” alex says “i’m done being here.” 

“sit down.” vasquez reiterates, but their tone has changed, it’s softer and perhaps that is what gets alex to sink down into the chair behind her. 

she near collapses, arms folded across her chest, still wound taught. 

“i’m done.” alex says, not looking at vas, instead focusing her gaze at a patch of wall “whatever henshaw thought he saw in me, he was wrong.” 

“i don’t think he was.” vasquez counters. 

“just let me go.” alex says “or i’ll walk out of here without signing your damn forms.” 

this draws vasquez into a long silence and for a moment alex begins to think that she’s going to get her way. it would be a good thing, alex is sure of that. leaving whatever the hell this place is behind, going back to her lab job. going back to the routine, to her own apartment. to her own space. no guns. no combat training. no alien biology crash courses. 

“you want to leave, alex, go ahead.” vasquez says “but you’ll be walking away from something big. if you want to go back to your lab job. to partying at all hours, i can’t stop you. but you’ve got potential to do something special here. a lot of those other recruits have had years in the military and you’re keeping pace with them stride for stride. you’re learning stuff on the fly that they’ve had years to take in and absorb. they know you belong here. i know you belong here. i’m just not sure you believe it.” 

alex considers her options. she knows she could leave. she knows she could go back to what her life was and whatever happens, happens. it would be the easiest option, that alex knows. however, there’s something else. there’s something eating at alex, a small voice in the back of her mind telling her to stay. telling her to keep going. that a normal life would be unimaginably boring after three months here. she thinks of the four weeks left, she thinks of four more weeks of exhaustion and vasquez on her back and fighting to prove that she’s good enough. 

“i know you belong here.” vasquez says “and if pushing you isn’t the way to get you to believe that. then i’m going to find another way to do it, because you need to believe. that’s all that’s missing. henshaw may have recruited you, but you’re the one who got yourself this far. you did that. you’re the one who’s put in the work, who’s studied and trained. it’s not just talent that you’ve got, but the mindset, the attitude. 

alex sighs and takes a breath “i don’t know.” she admits “you keep saying you know i belong and that i put in the work, but it doesn’t feel like enough.” 

“it’s never going to feel like enough.” vasquez replies after a moment “the job we do, there’s always another case, another bad guy to find. there’s always more people being hurt and more people doing the hurting. that’s just the fact of what we do. if we only focus on that, it becomes hopeless. if it’s never enough, why do it at all?” 

alex’s silence lingers on, she knows she should have the answers, but, 

she doesn’t. 

“do you want to know the most meaningful thing i’ve done in this job?” vasquez asks, and it feels out of left field, a sudden change in the conversation. 

alex nods. 

“my second month after qualifying, we were chasing some alien through the business district. he was some shapeshifter, wreaking havoc, leaving a body count. it was mass panic.” alex remembers the news about it “in all that, this little boy got separated from his mom. he was in tears. my squad, we were providing a perimeter, tracking the alien. he was nowhere near us by then, so i stepped forward, i showed the little boy my badge and i held his hand. i held his hand all the way until we found his mother.” vasquez exhales and alex listens on. 

“so, all this training we put you through, all the learning and stuff, it’ll come in handy, it’ll save your life more than once” vasquez continues “but honestly, the most important thing i’ve ever done in my career is hold a little boys hand until we could find his mom. everything else, every alien i’ve apprehended, every bomb we’ve stopped from going off, it’s great and part of what we do, but that little boy, and the relief on his moms face, that was everything.” 

“so that’s the point?” alex asks “the point is that we’re doing something worthwhile? that helps people?” 

“yeah,” vazquez nods “something like that.”

vasquez knows that in the future, when they and alex talk – agent to agent – those simple words will not be enough. for now, however, 

well, 

alex considers. she thinks of the next four weeks, and then she thinks beyond that. 

she thinks of kara. alex thinks of her mom. 

of her dad. 

she sighs, leaning forward onto her elbows and asks, 

“so, if i don’t leave,” she starts “what do i do?”

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of feelings about the relationship between alex & vas - here is a snapshot of how all of it began. as ever, please let me know what you think. thank you to everyone who has commented on stories past.


End file.
